Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/606

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572
THE ZOOLOGIST.

but, in addition to Dr. Bowdler Sharpe's 'Handbook,' mentioned in your editorial note, this name is to be found in Forster's 'Catalogus Avium in Insulis Britannicis Habitantium' (1817); Macgillivray's 'Manual of British Birds' (1846), and Swainson's 'Folk Lore and Provincial Names of British Birds' (1886). It seems to me to be co-related with St. George's Channel. In Clyde this bird is called Stocknet or Stockannet; and it also bears the following names in different localities:—Skelder, Skelgoose, Skeldrake or Duck, Scale Drake or Duck, Skell, Skeeling, Skeel Duck or Goose, Skeeling Goose, Shelder, Sheld Fowl, Sly Goose, Sky (?) Goose, Ruddy Goose, Bar-, Ber-, and Bur-gander, Bar Drake, Bay Duck, Burrow Duck, Links Duck, Pirennet or Perenet; Gaelic: Cra-ghiadh or Cradh-gheadh; and Welsh Hwyad-yr-eithin or Hywad-fruith.—Hugh Boyd Watt (3, Victoria Drive, Mount Florida, Glasgow).

Heron Choked by a Frog.—In the month of August, on the western borders of the Bay of Allan, in Kildare, Ireland, I came across an instance of a Heron being choked in the act of swallowing a frog.—H. Marmaduke Langdale (Thorneycroft, Compton, Peterfield).

An unrecorded Norfolk Great Bustard.—Professor Newton, with his usual kindness, was good enough to inform me early in the present year that he had heard, through Mr. Osbert Salvin, of a Norfolk killed Great Bustard, which would shortly be sold by auction at Bournemouth, expressing a hope that if genuine it might be restored to its native county. After much negotiation and lengthened correspondence as to its history, I was enabled to purchase what has proved to be the finest male Bustard I have ever seen, and it is now in the collection of Mr. Connop, of Rollesby Hall, Norfolk, with many other local rarities. The history of the bird is briefly as follows. It was shot on Swaffham Heath about the year 1830 by a Mr. Glasse, Q.C., who then resided at Vere Lodge, Raynham, near Fakenham, Norfolk, and had remained in the possession of himself and Miss Glasse (his daughter), until it was sold with the effects of the latter shortly after her death at Bournemouth. I was able to obtain this information from a lady who knew Miss Glasse well, and had heard the history of the bird from her lips; it was also corroborated by Mr. Bear, the late Mr. Glasse's coachman, who assured me that his master had more than once mentioned the circumstance of his having shot the bird on Swaffham Heath to him; its history is therefore perfectly established. This superb old bird, if the estimated date of its death be correct, would not unlikely be the last male of the Swaffham drove—the last female having been killed in 1838.—Thomas Southwell (Norwich).

Occurrence of the Mediterranean Herring Gull, Larus cachinnans, in Norfolk.—Whilst engaged in making a catalogue of the fine collection